Pets
by 9r7g5h
Summary: All pets at Silas U had to be registered. Carmilla: The Series.


**AN:** This was a random, spur of the moment ficlet that turned into a monster. A good thing came out of it, though- I learned that you can e-mail yourself texts, saving me hours of copying the info from my phone to my computer! :D I hope you enjoy the Hollstein and Lawdorf fun! :D

**Disclaimer:** I do not own Carmilla. U by Xotex does.

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><p>When Laura and Betty had been summoned to the Student Housing office, they had been expecting something a little less...human.<p>

In a place where gnomes did the laundry and everyone was sure one of the teachers was a demon, a non-student who was actually human was strange. Out of place. Almost...wrong, in a way, though anyone who attended Silas would hard pressed to explain why a perfectly normal human adult was weirder then sharks in the pool.

But there she was; a normal, adorable, middle-aged woman tottering around her office, straightening paper as the girls got themselves settled in the two overstuffed chairs she had set up before her desk.

They didn't need words to know they both disliked her. Normal was weird, and weird could be dangerous.

"Thank you for coming, ladies," the woman said with a smile, coming to a rest in the chair behind her desk, smiling widely at the two. It was a nice smile- teeth straight, white...almost too straight and too white, as if she had just returned from the dentist's and three hours of bleaching. "I'm sorry to pull you out if class," she continued, "but this really is a matter that needs to be discussed."

"If it's the roommate complaint I filed at the end of last term," Betty quickly said as the woman rifled through the files on her desk, shooting Laura an apologetic glance, "I'd like to remove that from the record. It was one large misunderstanding, and Laura and I are fine now." Laura nodded in agreement as Betty spoke, hoping this would be the end of their visit to the creepy Student Housing office.

"Oh, we threw that out months ago," the woman laughed, either not seeing or ignoring the confused look the girls shared. "No, we knew you two would work it out. This meeting," the woman said, the smile falling from her face as she got serious, "is about your pets."

"Our...pets?" Laura asked slowly, confusion clear in her voice. "What pets?"

"Don't play coy with me, young lady," the woman said, tapping her fingers on the desk. "You, Ms. Hollis, have been seen multiple times with a large black cat by your side. And you," she said, turning toward Betty, "I have pictures, Ms. Spielsdorf, of you with a large red dog. What pets indeed?"

Her huffing and scolding under her breath went unnoticed as Laura and Betty stared at each other, both trying to hide the amusement on their faces as they realized what she meant.

Hopefully Danny and Carmilla would find this just as funny, though chances were they were going to be pissed.

"Now, girls," the woman spoke up, bringing them back to the problem at hand, "you know Silas has no issue with the students having pets, comfort animals, or magical familiars, but you have to register them with the school. Which, clearly, you have not. Giving us three options."

"Those would be what, exactly," Betty asked, her tone stiff. Not from anger or worry, but from trying to suppress the laugh that had her shoulders shaking.

"First, the two of you could send your pets home," the woman began. "Your family would have a week to come pick them up, then they would be sent to the nearest pound. Your family would be able to retrieve them at any time, but I'm sure your animals would prefer not to go there."

"Of course. Option two," Laura asked, biting her lip to keep from smirking. She couldn't wait til she got the chance to tell Carm she'd almost been sent to the pound.

"Option two," the woman continued, "you two can go ahead and register your adorable little babies now. I have all the paper work right here, so you can get it done, but doing so will come with a hefty late fee. A couple hundred dollars each."

Both girls winced. Laura knew Carmilla would pay them back; years of smart investments and everything she'd inherited when the Dean had 'disappeared' meant that a handful of hundreds were a drop in the swimming pool for the vampire, but that didn't make the amount any less harsh.

"Option three-"

"We'll just go ahead and register them," Betty interrupted. "Our..._babies_ would hate to leave us, and like you pointed," she continued, "you already do have the paperwork. It would be a shame to let your preparations go to waste."

"Oh, wonderful," the woman said happily, lying a stack of papers before each girl. "I was hoping you'd choose option two." Bustling around to get them each a pen, she sat on the edge of the desk to watch as the girls began to sign.

"While you're looking over that," the woman said after a few moments of silence, "there are two other quick matters I need to discuss with you two: their sleeping arrangements and their identification."

"It says here our pets can be kept in our dorm," Betty pointed out. "Can they not?"

"Your pets are just so big, love," the woman quickly said in defense. "I'm worried that your dorm is too cramped for such large animals. I'm surprised they haven't tried to kill each other yet."

"They've tried," Laura joked, "but they're well trained to stop when we say so."

"Be that as it may," the woman said, "our Animal Breeder's club has stables they keep the sheep and goats in during mating season that are currently empty. Your pets would have plenty of room to stretch in there, and it's close enough for you to see them each day. And there's a fee if they destroy the room, which I'm sure you want to avoid." Pulling out a map of the campus, she spread it out on her lap. "Care to see where it is?"

"No need," Betty replied with a smile, shaking her head. "We can keep them with us. They haven't minded too much sharing the room so far, and our...pets are well trained enough that they won't hurt anything. And we take them out often enough that they are well exercised."

"Exercise which brings us to identification," the woman said, glad to have found an appropriate lead in. "Silas requires all animals that go outside wear an obvious form of identification that marks them as pets. Especially dogs, dearie," she added to Betty. "There's a wild pack of...of _mongrels_ running around campus, and we wouldn't want your sweet puppy to get mixed up with them, now would we?"

"Of course not." It was all Betty could do to keep a straight face, her mind racing at how the leader of said pack, the very 'puppy' in question, would take the newest description of them.

Not well. Not well at all.

"Glad we're on the same page," the woman said, delighted. "Since the identification needs to be seen from a distance by our Animal Control club, I went ahead and got you two these. Think of them as a thank you gift, for being so willing to work with me."

Any amusement the two had previously had for the situation disappeared as the woman dropped a light blue and a white collar into their hands.

"You want Car...amel," Laura stuttered, her face bright red and her eyes wide with terror. "Caramel, my cat-who has no relation to my former roommate-you want her to wear a collar?"

"Don't want, dearie," the woman clarified. "Require. But she'll look stunning in that white, while your dog, with all that red fur, will be beautiful in that blue. Now, if you could-"

"Wait," Laura interrupted, desperate for some other solution then making her girlfriend wear a collar, of all things, "you said there were three options. What's option three?"

"Option three," the woman said slowly, her eyes taking on a reddish hue as her teeth, her previously perfect tenth, sharpened, "is that I eat them."

Neither girl said another word as they filled out the paperwork, paid the fee, and left with the collars.

"_Mongrels_," Danny asked indigently, fuming as she paced from one end of the room to the other. "She called _my _pack mongrels? The pack has been part of Silas for generations; my mother was the alpha, as was my grandmother, my great grandmother, and every wolf since the start of our line. And she calls my pack mongrels, and me a _dog?" _

Reaching out, Betty placed her hand on Danny's shoulder, bringing her girlfriend to a halt with her touch. Try as she might, though, nothing she could do could calm the werewolf's anger; her claws still grew, her eyes yellowed, and the angrier she became, the deeper her growl grew.

It was a similar anger that Laura was trying to deal with on the bed where Carmilla was sulking, collar held in her hands as she steamed.

"Caramel," Carmilla hissed, staring at the tag that the Student Housing Office had made. "You could have chosen any name, and you went with _Caramel?" _

"I'm sorry, Carm," Laura sighed, flopping down on the bed next to her. "I was panicking, and that was the first thing that came to mind. At least it sounds similar enough to your name that we can play it off as a slip up if someone hears me say the wrong thing."

"Still, Cupcake," Carmilla grumbled, tossing the collar into Laura's lap and crossing her arms, "anything would be better than Caramel. Caramel the Cat, Caramel the Vampire; sounds like a bad meme."

"Fine," Laura huffed, "I'll go get some new tags later. Can you just shift now, so I can size this for you? I can't be messing with it all the time when you're a cat in public, so we need to do this now. That way, when you shift, we can just put it on and go."

"No way." It was Danny who responded, pushing away the collar Betty had been holding up, addressing both of them at the same time. "We're not pets that can be collared and leashed whenever we go outside. You should have just told them we're shape shifters and left it at that."

"It's not the weirdest thing to have happened in this hellhole," Carmilla pointed out. For the second time the two of them were in complete agreement- this whole situation was ridiculous, and they refused to put up with it. "If they needed us to register then, we could have just gotten it over with and been done with this mess."

Realizing that things weren't going to go their way-and there was no way anyone in the office would believe that they had shape shifting girlfriends now- Betty and Laura exchanged _the look_ and started to steel themselves for what would come.

Before they had gotten their girlfriends together and told them what the meeting had been about, Laura and Betty had talked long about how they would get their shapeshifting partners to comply, if just to keep them out of the reaches of that woman. While they were sure they could take her, they didn't want to risk either of them being eaten in the process.

The plan, if they couldn't convince them with words, was risky, and there was no guarantee that it would work at all. But it was the best they'd been able to come up with, and so they had to try.

Reaching up just as Danny was about to start another rant, Betty pulled her down so her mouth was pressed against her ear, whispering hurried words to quiet her. Slowly heat crawled up Danny's neck, her face flushing as red as her hair as she listened, wide eyed, to what Betty was saying, chewing on her bottom list as she registered the words. Pulling away, her cheeks deepened to maroon as Betty held up the collar and winked.

"We're gonna go," Danny said quickly, grabbing Betty by the hand and pulling her towards the door, "and finish this conversation in my room at the house. We'll see you guys later." Before either could respond the two of them were gone, Betty sending one last smirk over her shoulder as the door closed to let Laura know it had worked.

"Before you get started, Cupcake," Carmilla chimed in before Laura could begin, "that stuff isn't going to work on me. Super hearing, remember? And even then," she added with a roll of her eyes, "cats don't 'play fetch.' That is purely a dog thing. And apparently a wolf thing, since Clifford got so excited over Blondie suggesting it."

"I might not be an expert on animals," Laura replied indigently, ignoring Carmilla's scoff, "but I do know that."

"Then what's your big plan to get that collar on me, sweetheart," Carmilla asked, wrinkling her nose as Laura dropped the item in question on the bed and stood. "It's not even leather," she complained, poking it with her foot. "What's even the point?"

"The point," Laura answered as she rifled through her bag, smiling to herself as she found what she wanted, "is that you can easily be seen by animal control as a pet and I don't need to pick you up from the pound. And my plan…"

Turning around so she was facing Carmilla-who was pretending to be bored with the whole procedure-, Laura kept her hands behind her back as she felt for the tab keeping the package behind her sealed. Finding the little piece of plastic, Laura yanked, tearing the wrapping and releasing her weapon.

Carmilla stilled as her nostrils flared, her pupils dilated as she turned to stare at her girlfriend, head tilted to try and see what the girl was keeping behind her back. When Laura moved, the faint sound of bells could be heard, forcing the vampire's eyes to narrow as she continued to stare. When she did nothing, a long, slow hiss left her lips as she caved and spoke.

"What's behind your back, Laura?"

"What, this," Laura asked innocently, pulling the large, pink, _amazing_ smelling toy bunny from behind her back, waving it side to side so the bells sewn on the tips of its ears and limbs jingled. "This is just a little something I picked up from the pet store with Betty before we met up. I'm calling him Mr. Jingles." Taking a few steps forward, it took all Laura had not to laugh as Carmilla's eyes slid shut, purring starting deep in her chest. "I was thinking I would buy this for Caramel, my cat," Laura said with a shrug, ignoring the irritated but unfocused glare Carmilla shot her, "but since my cat doesn't seem to be here, I'll just have to return him to the pet store."

Smiling at Carmilla, shaking it again so the bells rang once more, Laura placed the bunny on her computer chair and backed away, glancing at her clock to start keeping track of the time.

Four minutes later, Mr. Jingles was nothing more than a series of scraps, Carmilla kept rubbing her furry cheek against her thigh and trying to head-butt her in the stomach, and Laura had a properly measured collar for 'Caramel' to wear when they went outside.


End file.
